V.—FREEDOM AND COMPULSION

Abstract

THE problem of freedom or free will consists of finding valid criteria for our application of certain common words and our use of well-known concepts, which we apply to human behaviour and actions. Under certain conditions, it seems, we describe men as 'acting freely ', as ' guilty', 'blameworthy ', or ' wicked ', and as ' deserving punishment'; under other conditions we describe them as ' forced ' or ' compelled ', ' not to blame ', ' not responsible' or ' acting involuntarily'. It is this group of concepts to which we refer when we use phrases like ' It's not his fault', ' I did it against my will', 'he's to be pitied rather than blamed', and so on. In other words, we make a distinction between free action and compulsive action: between acting of one's own free will, and acting under compulsion. It is the basis of this distinction which is commonly called into question. Let us first be clear that this is not a distinction between freedom and predictability. I doubt whether any such distinction has been made in practice, except by muddle-headed philosophers. Ordinary men do not behave, and do not talk, as if the predictability of their actions disqualified them from being free. I can predict that a child will work out a simple sum correctly, or that he will not stab me with a carving-knife; but unless some.one is threatening him with dire punishment if he gets the sum wrong or does stab me, no compulsion is being exercised on the child. On the contrary, ' unpredictable' is if anything a word of dispraise; whereas freedom is something which we cherish, so that it would be very queer indeed if freedom were to depend upon unpredictability. But it is a mistake to suppose that after having explained, as some philosophers have very adequately explained,' the muddle about freedom and causality, we are left with nothing that can properly be called a problem. There is indeed no particular difficulty in appreciating and using the criteria which, in everyday life, we actually employ in distinguishing between free and compulsive actions. We all know, for instance, the difference between jumping and being pushed, between stealing and kleptomania, between signing a' contract freely and signing it under duress. We all know when we would accept evidence for the truth of statements like He could have acted otherwise . or 1 E.g. Professor Ayer in ' Freedom and Necessity ', Polemic, No. 5, 1946.